


Of Bloodlines and Bleeding-Hearts

by Legendaerie



Series: Spell It Out [7]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: (magical racism we all know what this is called), Bastards both Literal and Figurative, F/M, blood politics, the first sin was Knowledge for a reason folx
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 01:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17214374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie
Summary: York has an idea.





	Of Bloodlines and Bleeding-Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> one last fic before the end of the year!

_ If I was a Halfblood. If I was a Halfblood. If I was a Halfblood. _

 

It’s been playing on a loop in York’s mind for a month, ever since Carolina let it slip that she was  _ betrothed  _ and shattered his heart into a thousand pieces. He doesn’t know his father, but his Magic blood has to have come from that side of his gene pool. There’s not a trace of it in his mother’s.

 

Carolina has just gone home, healed and properly chastised for sneaking out. A month ago, York would have been dizzy with infatuation. Tonight, it just makes him think.

 

_ If I was a Halfblood. _

 

“Hey, mom?” he asks, finishing up the last of the supper dishes. She’s seated at the table mending a sock with her glasses perched on her nose, glaring at the hole in them, but her expression softens by the time her eyes meet his face.

 

“Yes?”

 

“What was… my dad like?”

 

She frowns, returning to her sewing as she thinks. “He was… charming, when he wanted to be. Witty, like you. But you have a compassion that he never had.”

 

“Was he Magic?”

 

His mother stops again and looks at him. Hard. “Is this about that girl?”

 

York nearly drops his last plate. “ _ Mom!”  _ His tongue feels thick in his mouth as he tries to find an explination. “We’re not— I mean, I— she’s from a really posh family, and I just kinda wanna know—“

 

“There is nothing worth finding in that man,” she says, and he’s never seen her this sharp, “and nothing worth that  _ girl _ if your family matters that much to her.”

 

Her words stings. York yanks out the stopper in the sink and spins around, listening to the water burble out behind him.

 

“She doesn’t care! It’s  _ me _ who wants to know! Sometimes I can want things of my own, you know! I’m not a doormat like—“

 

A fraction too late, York bites off his words. His mother is watching him, inscrutable, and he ducks his head.

 

“I’m… sorry. I just. I hate not knowing half of me. I hate being so… blind.” So obviously damaged goods. Incomplete. Less than his peers.

 

His mother sighs, and he hears her getting up. He wants to move, to stop her from limping over when she needs to recover from her break but he’s anchored to the spot. Unable, even, to lift his head until she slips under it to hug him. Unable to stop a tear sneaking down his cheek.

 

“Oh, my sweet boy. My beautiful, beaming, brilliant son. Sometimes it is better not to know.”

 

_ You’re wrong,  _ he thinks, but hugs her back anyway.  _ Even the scariest shadow isn’t as frightening once you’ve faced it. _

 

———

 

There are spells, of course. There’s always spells. But they’re restricted, high class magic, S class difficulty. Of course he finds their instructions anyway, practices under the ever-shifting stairs late at night when the scrape of stone on stone can mask the sounds of explosions. Ends up with burns on his fingertips and pockmarks all up and down his arm from the failed incantations.

 

Carolina sees the bandages, once. “I warned you about the sunburn,” she teases, tossing her ponytail over her shoulder as she swoops overhead and rejoins her team for Quiddich practice. Her smile numbs the ache in his skin but worsens the one in his heart.

 

He’s in love with her, deeply and helplessly, and he would drain his body of his worthless blood if only they could be together.

 

So he goes back to his research, lets his broom collect dust in the shed and Carolina fly her warmups alone. Doesn’t even make it out of the dorms for the Hufflepuff/Gryffindor match the following week, and slips the ingredients for a paternity potion from the storeroom into his bag.

 

He’s just about to climb the stairs when he sees Carolina striding over to him, red-cheeked and messy haired.

 

“Where were you?” she snaps.

 

York shifts his satchel out of her line of sight. “Studying? Why?”

 

Carolina’s mouth is pressed into a hard line, and her chin tilts up just slightly. Her way of flinching when her feelings are hurt. His eyes flash over her again and he recognizes Quiddich gear under that robe.

 

“Oh,” he starts, just in time for her to walk away; just in time to notice that the flyers say Hufflepuff and Slytherin instead, “oh no, Carolina, I’m so sorry.”

 

The doors open. The school floods with students. He’d not thinking about anything at all other than  _ please don’t leave  _ when he grabs her by the shoulders and spins them into an empty classroom out of sight.

 

“What—“

 

“Carolina, please.” He’s still holding her shoulders as he apologizes. “You know I wouldn’t miss your match on purpose.”

 

She won’t look at him. But she’s not running, either. Hurt, but not betrayed. She’s not flown off the handle with him since she came to his house, softened more than hardened when they’ve gotten into their little spats. He doesn’t know what caused the change, but it makes her fragile temper easier to date.

 

Sate, he means.

 

After a second, she sighs. “I know why you don’t play anymore. Just… you’ve been acting weird lately, and I—“

 

Carolina frowns. She grabs his wrist and holds his hand up to her face, studying the scars and sores there from spell backfire. York feels the color drain from his face, and he tries to pull away.

 

No luck.

 

“York.” Gone is the self important injured pride, replaced with raw concern. Forget what he said before, an earnest Carolina is a hundred times harder to handle than a standoffish one. “What happened?”

 

“Nothing! Nothing serious, just—“ 

 

Her eyes, green like malachite or the ocean, flicker as they search his face. Jump to the door behind them as the lock clicks, and she shoves him away.

 

“Carolina, here you— oooooh,” and the two Slytherin girls he doesn’t know coo with excitement. York takes advantage of Carolina’s hissed denials to bolt, his heart sinking into his shoes with every step. If he can make it up to her, it’ll be worth it.

 

Right?

 

———

 

He has to wait for the Gryffindor and Slytherin match to brew his potion. The seats are absolutely packed with students, and he makes sure to catch Carolina’s eye once or twice during the first quarter of the game. The rivalry between the two houses goes back to the school’s inception, and with Texas and Carolina pitted against each other again as Captains and Seekers both, they had to extend the seating to accommodate years of alumni insistent on attending.

 

_ I’m so sorry, _ York thinks as Carolina swoops ahead, a faint blur in the gathering gloom as clouds roll in.  _ I have to do this. I won’t be long. _

 

The moment he gets up, his seat is lost in the sea of humanity. Wriggling his way through the crowds is difficult, but he hurries, trying to slip out before anyone notices. He hits the stairs just in time for the crowd to gasp as Carolina and Texas spin like helixes through the air after the snitch.

 

“Be safe,” he whispers, and slips back to the castle.

 

His hands are shaking as he pulls the ingredients out of his desk in the Potions classroom, spreading the coded recipe in front of him. It’s derived from dark magic, for sure, a spell so old he had to pour through a dozen other potion books to find similar recipes and be sure he had the methods right. A spoonful of crushed dried bleeding-hearts flowers for love, one buckeye nut whole for tracking, four inches of red silk thread for destiny, seven drops of deadly nightshade for deception…

 

And finally, blood. His own blood, freshly drawn with a rose quartz crystal knife over the cauldron. York holds his wrist above the simmering liquid, presses the cold stone against his wrist and hesitates.

 

Not because he is afraid of the pain. He’s endured worse, inflicted worse on himself this month alone. Not because he is afraid of the potential side effect, that his father would feel himself being scryed and get York expelled for skirting so close to foul magic. He is afraid of knowing, and remaining not good enough.

 

“Don’t stop on my account.”

 

York jumps, drops the rock to shatter on the floor and spins around. The Headmaster is standing in the doorway, a flash of lightning outside whiting out his eyes behind his glasses.

 

“S-sir, Professor, I—“

 

“You’re a terrible liar, York, but very good at potions. Go ahead.” He approaches, picking up the largest piece of the rose quartz and handing it to York. “Complete it.”

 

His hands are shaking as the Headmaster walks past him to the other side of the room, next to the window. There he stands, and watches, and waits as York once again raises the blade.

 

_ If I was a Halfblood, wouldn’t I still be me? _

 

York looks up at the Headmaster, then out the window where he can just makes out the flecks of the Quiddich players against the darkening sky. “This is a test, isn’t it?” he asks.

 

“Perhaps. This is a school, and a classroom, and a choice, after all.”

 

He looks down again at his reflection in the potion, a weak and wobbling thing. And with one last, deep breath, exchanges the stone for his wand.

 

“Scourgify,” he commands, and the half-finished potion vanishes. 

 

York gathers up the extra ingredients, cleans up his workspace and sees the Headmaster still standing there, watching in silence.

 

“Are you going to expel me?”

 

“What for?”

 

His shoulders dip with relief, and he collects the ingredients to return to the storeroom. “Thank you. I’ll see you out on the field in a moment.”

 

The Headmaster doesn’t speak until York is in the doorway.

 

“You’ll never marry her, anyway,” and he brushes past the Hufflepuff, knocking the envelope of bleeding-heart flowers loose to fall and spill into the hallway. One of the flowers is crushed to dust under his boot, and he vanishes into the castle’s vast emptiness once more.

 

Left alone, York cleans up the flowers with clumsy fingers, as the sky lights up with gold and crimson fireworks.

  
  
  
  



End file.
